Regosols are young, mineral soils with a minimal ochric surface horizon, developed on deep, well‐drained, medium‐textured, parent materials.
Connotation. Soils in the weathered shell of the Earth; from Gr. rhegos, blanket.
Synonyms. In other systems of classification soils at the incipient stage of formation represented by the WRB group Regosols, are classed as ‘entisols’ (USA), ‘skeletal soils’ (Australia), ‘Rohböden’ (Germany), and ‘sols peu évolués régosoliques d'érosion’ or even ‘sols minéraux bruts d'apport éolien ou volcanique’ (France).
Definition. Regosols are operationally defined as very weakly developed mineral soils in unconsolidated materials with only an ochric surface horizon. They are not shallow enough to be leptosols, sandy enough to be arenosols, and lack the fluvic properties that would allow them to be classed as fluvisols. In effect, Regosols are considered to be a “taxonomic rest group” (FAO, 2001), defined negatively as all soils that could not be accommodated...
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Bibliography
FAO, 2001. Lecture notes on the major soils of the world. World Soil Resources Reports, 94. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 334 pp.
FitzPatrick, E.A., 1986. An Introduction to Soil Science, 2nd ed. Essex, England/New York: Longman Scientific & Technical/Wiley, 255 pp.
Zech, W., and Hintermaier‐Erhard, G., 2007. Soils of the World. Heidelberg, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 130 pp.
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Meek, B.D., Chesworth, W., Spaargaren, O. (2008). Regosols. In: Chesworth, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Soil Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3995-9_479
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